Progressive Politics in Minnesota, the Nation, and the World

We Are Heating The Planet - And Doing Little To Stop It

It is getting very discouraging. Climate scientists are almost beyond the point of warnings - now they are trying to let us know what we should expect and try to prepare for it. New studies are out.

From environmentalist, Bill McKibben, familiar with 2 new studies:

"These studies are part of the emerging scientific understanding that we're in even hotter water than we'd thought. We're a long ways down the path to disastrous global warming, and the policy response -- especially in the United States -- has been pathetically underwhelming."

Underwhelming is probably an understatement. The US, under Trump, is actively undermining the little progress we have made.

"The 2 degree mark -- that's 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit -- was set by the 2016 Paris Agreement....If we surpass that mark, it has been estimated by scientists that life on our planet will change as we know it. Rising seas, mass extinctions, super droughts, increased wildfires, intense hurricanes, decreased crops and fresh water and the melting of the Arctic are expected. The impact on human health would be profound. Rising temperatures and shifts in weather would lead to reduced air quality, food and water contamination, more infections carried by mosquitoes and ticks.

One of the studies concludes that even if we could cut off emissions in the next 15 years (assuming that we act with intensity world wide), we still will reach 3 degrees Celsius by 2100.

We keep thinking that we just have to do something...off somewhere in the future. But these studies indicate that the baseline we are establishing now is not something we can really reverse. We can only put the damage to the climate on hold...and only if we seriously act.

We are once again beyond climate "change" - we are heating up the planet.